The Book of Delight, and Other Papers | Page 9

sharp; you need not essay a second blow." She gave her husband a choice repast, and wine to make him drunken. As he lay asleep, she grasped the sword and struck him on the head; and the tin bent, and he awoke. With some ado she quieted him, and he fell asleep again. Next morning the king summoned her, and asked whether she had obeyed his orders. "Yes," said she, "but thou didst frustrate thine own counsel." Then the king assembled his sages, and bade her tell all that she had attempted; and the husband, too, was fetched, to tell his story. "Did I not tell you to cease your praises of women?" asked the king, triumphantly.
IN DISPRAISE OF WOMAN
The fox follows up these effective narratives with a lengthy string of well-worn quotations against women, of which the following are a few: Socrates, the wise and saintly, hated and despised them. His wife was thin and short. They asked him, "How could a man like you choose such a woman for your wrife?" "I chose," said Socrates, "of the evil the least possible amount." "Why, then, do you look on beautiful women?" "Neither," said Socrates, "from love nor from desire, but to admire the handiwork of God in their outward form. It is within that they are foul." Once he was walking by the way, and he saw a woman hanging from a fig-tree. "Would," said Socrates, "that all the fruit were like this."--A nobleman built a new house, and wrote over the door, "Let nothing evil pass this way." "Then how does his wife go in?" asked Diogenes.--"Your enemy is dead," said one to another. "I would rather hear that he had got married," was the reply.
"So much," said the fox to the leopard, "I have told thee that thou mayest know how little women are to be trusted. They deceive men in life, and betray them in death." "But," queried the leopard, "what could my wife do to harm me after I am dead?" "Listen," rejoined the fox, "and I will tell thee of a deed viler than any I have narrated hitherto."
THE WIDOW AND HER HUSBAND'S CORPSE
The kings of Rome, when they hanged a man, denied him burial until the tenth day. That the friends and relatives of the victim might not steal the body, an officer of high rank was set to watch the tree by night. If the body was stolen, the officer was hung up in its place. A knight of high degree once rebelled against the king, and he was hanged on a tree. The officer on guard was startled at midnight to hear a piercing shriek of anguish from a little distance; he mounted his horse, and rode towards the voice, to discover the meaning. He came to an open grave, where the common people were buried, and saw a weeping woman loud in laments for her departed spouse. He sent her home with words of comfort, accompanying her to the city gate. He then returned to his post. Next night the same scene was repeated, and as the officer spoke his gentle soothings to her, a love for him was born in her heart, and her dead husband was forgotten. And as they spoke words of love, they neared the tree, and lo! the body that the officer was set to watch was gone. "Begone," he said, "and I will fly, or my life must pay the penalty of my dalliance." "Fear not, my lord," she said, "we can raise my husband from his grave and hang him instead of the stolen corpse." "But I fear the Prince of Death. I cannot drag a man from his grave." "I alone will do it then," said the woman; "I will dig him out; it is lawful to cast a dead man from the grave, to keep a live man from being thrown in." "Alas!" cried the officer, when she had done the fearsome deed, "the corpse I watched was bald, your husband has thick hair; the change will be detected." "Nay," said the woman, "I will make him bald," and she tore his hair out, with execrations, and they hung him on the tree. But a few days passed and the pair were married.
And now the leopard interlude nears it close. Zabara narrates the dénouement in these terms:
THE LEOPARD'S FATE
The leopard's bones rattled while he listened to this tale. Angrily he addressed his wife, "Come, get up and follow me, or I will slay thee." Together they went with their young ones, and the fox was their guide, and they reached the promised place, and encamped by the waters. The fox bade them farewell, his head laughing at his tail. Seven days were gone, when the rains descended, and in the deep